


The Spiderman Job

by TheaHades



Category: Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 09:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13233177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheaHades/pseuds/TheaHades
Summary: Parker is planning a surprise for Hardison's birthday when the team receives an unexpected visitor.





	The Spiderman Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [benjaminrussell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/benjaminrussell/gifts).



It had been a few months since Nate and Sophie had left the crew; Parker was loving her new role as Mastermind Thief extraordinaire and the team had finally settled into their new routine. Parker would wake up at the crack of dawn, leaving a note about their next mark on Hardison’s desk. She’d then head to the kitchen where Eliot would be making breakfast after taking delivery of the food and supplies for the pub. They’d eat together, discussing Eliot’s thoughts for the new menu and Parker suggesting plans for the renovation of the pub. Since discovering her love and appreciation for art, she’d decided to express it through redecorating the pub. Every morning, she would present Eliot with her latest plans and every morning he’d give them one look and then dismiss them with a grunt and a one or two word criticism. Parker was never discouraged though, she knew that Eliot was just trying to push her to be better. Still, she couldn’t wait for the day that he looked at one of her designs and told her that it wasn’t bad.  
  
After breakfast, she’d head to the climbing walls to kill time before Hardison finally got out of bed to give them the low down on the mark. It still felt a bit weird just being the three of them. With less bodies, they’d had to expand their skill base and train each other in their roles. Parker was proud of how well Eliot’s lock picking skills were progressing and she took great satisfaction that she was doing better than him in Hardison’s Hacking 101 lessons. Today was different though, because today was Hardison’s birthday.  
  
Parker had been planning it for weeks and was both extremely excited and nervous about how the party was going to go. After their last job, Hardison had insisted that they marathon all of the Spiderman films. Parker didn’t really understand why at the time, but it had something to do with her taking down the silver-haired mark who loved surfing. Hardison loved Spiderman because of the whole nerd turned hero thing and kept punching his fists in the air saying: “Age of the Geek, baby!” whenever Spiderman took down a bad guy. Parker had unexpectedly enjoyed it too because the main character not only shared her name, but also her love for climbing and swinging off buildings. She felt inspired, so decided to throw Hardison a Spiderman-themed birthday party. Eliot shocked her by being completely behind the idea. It turned out he also loved Spiderman but he told her that if she told anyone he would personally make her life hell.  
  
The hardest part had been trying to keep it secret from Hardison; it was tough planning a surprise birthday party for someone whose job it was to have tabs on what was going on. Eliot had been tasked with distraction duty, a job he loved because it meant that he could force Hardison into doing increasingly difficult work out routines. Seeing Hardison breathless and bruised on the floor whilst Eliot had barely broken a sweat gave him great pleasure. However he knew that it wouldn’t be an effective distraction all the time so gave in to Hardison’s request to introduce him to video games. Eliot was surprised by how fun they were, and his favourites now included Tomb Raider and Dark Souls. He claimed he only liked Tomb Raider because Lara was hot but Hardison knew he enjoyed it because he was getting super into the story. He enjoyed Dark Souls for the simple fact that he was better at it than Hardison, something Hardison wasn't best pleased about. Even with Eliot distracting him, Parker still had to make sure there was no digital trace of what she was doing, it made her feel like a proper, old-fashioned spy; she paid for everything with cash, insisted on meeting everyone face to face in a camera dead zone, and wiped her browsing history the way Hardison had taught her. Everything was sorted, and Parker thought she had a fool proof plan, until Jessica turned up.

*******

The morning had started off well and Parker was confident that Hardison seemed to have no clue as to the surprise that was waiting for him. Eliot was cooking them all an English breakfast and teasing Hardison about grey hairs, so they didn’t notice the woman enter the pub, not until she exclaimed loudly: “Happy birthday, Hardy!”  
  
She tottered over in six inch heels, gave a stunned Hardison a great big hug, and then kissed him amorously before Parker tasered her.  
  
“Babe,” Hardison said, putting his hands up defensively before Parker could tase him. “I have no idea what just happened! I have never see her before in my life!”  
  
“I think she might disagree with you there, Hardy.” Eliot sniggered.  
  
“Dude!” Hardison turned to Eliot “Not helping!”  
  
Parker was still standing, taser in hand, shaking slightly from shock and rage. “I’m going to finish eating my breakfast. I then expect a full explanation of who she is, and what she’s doing here.” She paused, waiting for the boys to move. “Well, go on then! She’s not going to research herself! And take her with you!”  
  
Eliot and Hardison jolted into action with Eliot picking up the woman and carrying her through to the next room; Hardison looked at Parker as if he was going to try and explain, but thought better of it and went over to the computers.  
  
Parker counted to ten before putting her fork down and letting herself cry.  


*******

Parker came into the boardroom to find Hardison, looking a bit sheepish, ready to run the presentation. It was obvious that he felt very uncomfortable about the whole situation, but Parker resolved herself to make sure she stayed cold and distant until this had all been explained.  
  
“Sh-should I begin?” Hardison questioned nervously. Parker just nodded, not trusting herself to speak.  
  
“Her name is Jessica Burrows, 25, from Selinsgrove Pennsylvania, and…” Hardison hesitated, not looking Parker in the eye.  
  
“And?” Parker demanded.  
  
“And, well, apparently she’s married to me.”  
  
“Oh boy…” Eliot crossed his arms, and gave himself a little distance from Parker.  
  
Parker took a moment to process what she'd just heard. She debated whether or not to take out the taser again, but decided that she’d better hear what Hardison had to say for himself. “You’re….married to her?”  
  
“I promise you, baby, I ain’t never married this woman, or any woman, for the matter. In fact, I don’t think Jessica is even her real name. It was too easy to find her.”  
  
Eliot started laughing. “You found it too easy to find your wife? C’mon, Hardison.”  
  
Parker at this point was shaking slightly from rage, hurt, but mostly confusion. She just didn’t know what to think.  
  
“Look, normally I have to dig a little, follow a few digital breadcrumbs, but this, it was almost like she wanted me to find all this information about her.”  
  
“Too easy.” Eliot said with disbelief. “Are you kidding me right now? Your defence that this is bullshit is that it was too easy?”  
  
Parker zoned out the argument that was erupting between Eliot and Hardison. She couldn’t keep looking at the marriage certificate on the screen, it confused her too much. She never would have believed that one bit of paper could call into question everything she thought she knew about the man she loved. She looked over to the corner Eliot had lain Jessica in to see if she could get any answers from her but she was nowhere to be seen.  
  
“Where is she?” Parker interrupted. They both turned to look at her, and then the corner where Jessica had been.  
  
“I put her right there” Eliot responded, pointing at the spot where Jessica had been. “Dammit, Hardison!”  
  
“How is this my fault?” said Hardison, looking annoyed at the accusation.  
  
“She’s your wife.” Eliot grinned, enjoying all the new material he had to tease Hardison with.  
  
“Let’s just find her, we can sort out…everything else once we’ve found her.”  
  
After Hardison gave him a dirty look, Eliot went over to the scene of the disappearance, searching for any clue as to where she might have gone. When he found nothing, he headed to the kitchen where he kept his emergency stash of knives, muttering under his breath “Hardison better not have married a trained killer...”  
  
Hardison started flicking through the CCTV of the building, to see if he could see anything of where she could have gone. He found the footage from moments earlier, trying not to notice how hurt Parker looked, focusing on the body in the corner. They watched as Jessica got up silently, which was quite the achievement given her choice of footwear. She then looked directly at the camera and blew a kiss leaving the feed dead and them watching a black screen.  
  
“How did she do that?” Parker asked  
  
“She must have had outside help, let’s see if I can trace any sign of our accomplice in the code.”  
  
“Sounds like a good idea. I’m going to check front of house.”  
  
Hardison reached out to her. “Babe, wait.” Parker turned to look at him, sadness hidden behind steely resolve. It was obvious to Hardison how upset she was, but also that she was seriously pissed off. “I..I just want you to know, you’re the only girl for me. Please trust me, I didn’t know anything about this.”  
  
There was a moment of silence, Parker knew that Hardison was hoping that she would show him some sign of her belief in him, but she didn’t know if she could bring herself to give him any. “The quicker we find her, the sooner we can have answers, so let’s get to it.” Parker turned away to avoid the wounded expression on Hardison’s face.  
  
She was almost at the door when she heard the distinctive click of a gun being cocked. She turned around slowly to find Jessica holding a gun against Hardison’s head.  
  
“Don’t try anything, blondie. If something awful were to happen, who do you think has the better motive: his wife, or the mistress who just found out he was married?”  
  
“Babe, you are not my mistress. This woman is clearly cray” said Hardison.  
  
“Aww, that hurts my feelings, babe. Why would say such hurtful things in front of me?” Jessica said, feigning being offended by his comments.  
  
“What do you want?” Parker surprised herself at how steady the words sounded, despite the whirlwind of emotions inside. She had never understood how calm and unfeeling Nate managed to be in situations like these, but here she was, doing exactly the same thing. Despite everything, she felt proud at how far she had come from the loner thief of 6 years ago.  
  
“Ooh, what do we have here? Ice Queen Barbie! I’m pretty sure the temperature just dropped by a few degrees.” Jessica replied “It’s a good thing you have your loving wife, isn’t it, Hardy?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s a little difficult to take comfort when you have a gun pointed at my head!” Hardison replied.  
  
“Would you prefer it if I pointed it at your crotch instead?” Jessica said, keeping the gun pointed at the back of his head, laughing uncaringly.  
  
Parker was desperately trying to look for options to deal with this quickly, without Hardison getting killed, whilst also trying to not to make it obvious to Jessica that she was planning something. That was when she remembered the small throwing knife Eliot had given her for her birthday after she had thoroughly enjoyed his projectile weapons class. Unfortunately, that was the moment Hardison decided to make a move. He turned round and tried to do one of the disarms Eliot had taught them, the problem being, Hardison had never been any good at disarms. He spun round and instead of making contact with her wrist, he made contact with her hand, so all he succeeded in doing was slapping her hand a little and spinning so that the gun was now square between his eyes.  
  
This made hitting Jessica with a throwing knife a little more challenging because Hardison was now completely in the way. Parker briefly considered just hitting Hardison instead, but it was only a fleeting thought. It was obvious now that Hardison wasn’t hiding a secret wife and Parker cursed herself for getting so jealous.  
  
“Okay, I’m losing my patience. Barbie, I want you to pull up Hardy here’s will.”  
  
“My what now? You don’t need to see that” Hardison replied, shocked, clearly reluctant.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Jessica said radiating false sweetness. “I’m just going to tweak it a little so that your lovely wife here can get all she deserves for being such an important part of your life.”  
  
“Why are you talking about yourself in the third person? That’s kinda weird. Especially since you are not his wife.” Parker retorted. Hardison tried to turn to look at her, knowing that she finally believed him. Parker blushed ever so slightly, but managed to maintain a calm demeanour. “You’re way too unhinged to be of any interest to Hardison.”  
  
“Oh, honey.” Jessica replied condescendingly. “Crazy is just his type.”  


*******

Eliot had thought it best to leave Hardison and Parker to it. As amusing as it was to see Hardison humiliated like this, he felt very protective over Parker, and wasn’t enjoying how much it was affecting her. There was something off about Jessica, he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He had to believe that Hardison knew nothing of her existence, otherwise, who had he been working with over the last 5 years? It seemed too out of character for Hardison to have kept a hot wife a secret anyway; he was way too nerdy to have a secret wife.  
  
He had just turned the corner in the kitchen, nearly at the location of his knives, when he heard a distant click, the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked. In that moment, he knew that Jessica was definitely not what she seemed and that Parker and Hardison were in trouble.  
  
He went to talk into his earbud, and then remembered that none of them had put them on that morning. They couldn't wear them all the time, that would be an invasion of privacy. Besides, Eliot really didn't want to know more about Parker and Hardison's relationship than he did already. The walls were thin. He heard enough. Luckily they had installed a small CCTV monitor in the kitchen so that Eliot could keep an eye on things whilst he was cooking. Eliot hurried over to the screen only to find that the feed in the boardroom had been cut. He cursed under his breath, grabbed a handful of knives, and went the back way to the boardroom hoping to God he wouldn’t be too late.  


*******

Eliot found himself directly behind Jessica. He crouched in the shadows and took in the scene around him. Parker was at the computer looking to be searching through Hardison’s files whilst Jessica was urging her to hurry up, waving her gun in Hardison’s face. Eliot locked eyes with Hardison and brought his finger up to his mouth advising Hardison to stay quiet. Eliot sized up Jessica's fighting ability, quickly making a thousand calculations about his best method of attack. She was clearly experienced at this sort of con, but he wondered how many hitters she’d come across, or even how much she knew about them. From the looks of things, she was purely motivated by money and Hardison wasn’t exactly the most subtle about how healthy his bank account was, ordering a new gadget or toy practically every day. That, and the fact he owned the pub made him an obvious target, but did she know where the money came from? Eliot had to work on the assumption that she didn’t and had just made the unfortunate mistake of targeting the wrong crew. He slowly drew one of his knives, preparing the angle to hit her gun hand and start his planned mode of attack.  


*******

Parker knew exactly where to look for Hardison’s will but she didn’t want Jessica know that, so she fumbled through the folders, acting panicked as Jessica pushed her to act faster. She was furiously trying to think of a way out of this situation when she caught the glint of something moving behind her being reflected off the screen. She paused for the briefest of moments hoping that Jessica hadn’t noticed it but unfortunately it appeared that she had.  
  
Parker turned as Jessica did to see Eliot crouching in the shadows, poised to throw a knife. He managed to let loose before Jessica could react but missed by a hair’s breadth. The knife flew past her and clattered against the wall. She took her gun off Hardison and pointed it instead at Eliot.  
  
“I don’t like guns” Eliot growled in annoyance.  
  
“I don’t think many people like guns when they have one pointed at them.” Jessica retorted.  
  
Hardison attempted to use this distraction to slowly edge away, but due to his size and lack of stealth abilities, he just succeeded in drawing Jessica’s attention back to him. Jessica grabbed him by the arm, keeping her gun trained on Eliot.  
  
“Don’t think you’re getting away that easily, sweetheart.”  
  
At least one good thing had come of Hardison’s attempt to move, Parker now had a clear shot at Jessica, despite her grip on Hardison. She quietly drew the slim dagger from its hiding place on her wrist and held it ready, waiting for the perfect moment.  
  
“Now, I don’t know what kind of show you’re running,” Jessica said, “but I just want to get my money and leave, so Barbie, let’s get back to pulling up that will, shall we?” When she heard no movement from Parker, she turned her head to look behind her. Parker flashed her sweetest smile and threw the knife with all her force at Jessica’s hand. This knife found its mark and Jessica instantly let go of Hardison and dropped her gun. Eliot moved in and knocked her out with a single punch. He then turned to Parker with a broad grin sweeping his hair out of his face.  
  
“That’s my girl! Woo!” Eliot clapped in celebration and then bent down to pick Jessica up. “What do you want me to do with your wife, Hardison?”  
  
Hardison turned to look at Eliot, clearly a little in shock and replied: “I think I want a divorce.”  
  
Everyone started laughing, even Hardison, who managed a chuckle before flopping down on his chair in exhaustion.  
  
“Hey, the job's not over yet,” Parker said. “We still need to work out who hacked the feed. Whoever it was must have been good to get through Hardison's encryption.”  
  
“Yeah,” Hardison said, getting up and making his way to the keyboard, “like, crazy good. The government doesn’t have security as good as us.” He was furiously typing away at the keyboard trying to find any clues as to who this hacker could have been. “I’ve only met one person who could match me...” He trailed away, disbelief on his face. “That son of a...” Hardison hit the Enter key on his keyboard and a symbol like a globe with arrows coming out of it appeared.  
  
“What does that mean?” Eliot asked.  
  
“Chaos.”  
  
At that point, a message appeared on screen.  
  
Happy Birthday, Hardy.  
Hope you enjoyed a bit of Chaos  


*******

After the morning’s excitement Hardison had decided to spend the day erasing all record of his marriage to Jessica and then playing a lot of Halo with Eliot, so Parker was left alone to decorate the pub in peace. She was just putting the final touches on the decorations when Nate and Sophie arrived.  
  
“Parker,” Sophie exclaimed in awe, “this is amazing!” Parker had covered the walls with a New York skyline, the screen was showing an animated Spiderman logo HUD, and everything was blue and red. Parker had even coated the ceiling in spider webs but the pièce de résistance was a skyscraper-shaped cake with a spider man hanging off it. “Hardison is going to love this!”  
  
“I hope so,” Parker said, “after the day we’ve had, I think we all need to party. Hardison will be down shortly, he’s just making sure that the divorce has gone through smoothly.”  
  
Nate did a double take. “Divorce? Sounds like you really have had quite the day.”  
  
“It’s a long story. Let’s just focus on Hardison’s birthday. At the moment, I just want to pretend none of it happened and give my boyfriend the best Spiderman-themed surprise party ever, so let’s get in position before he comes downstairs.”  
  
Once everyone was safely hidden away, and the lights switched off, Parker gave Eliot the signal that they were ready for Hardison, and waited for the right moment. All the stress of the day, the uncertainty, the jealousy, it was gone. In that moment all Parker felt was excited to be giving Hardison a nice surprise to end the day of unpleasant ones. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and smiled.  
  
Through her eyelids she felt the lights flick on and heard everyone jumping out and shouting surprise. She heard Hardison screaming like a girl. He then burst out laughing, protesting they hadn't scared him, he was just acting. Honest. She waited until Hardison was in the centre of the room before revealing her position.  
  
He didn’t notice her at first, she hadn’t expected him to, but as she got closer he looked up and saw her. Parker was suspended from the ceiling, upside down, in a full Spiderman costume, minus the mask. She couldn’t help but grin at the look on his face. She slowly lowered herself down until her face was level with him and whispered “Age of the geek, baby” before kissing him on the lips. “Happy Birthday.”  
  
“Age of the geek, baby!” Hardison yelled, pure joy on his face. Eliot stood nearby with his arms crossed, just rolling his eyes, but everyone knew that he loved it really.  
  
Parker smiled broadly, soaking in how happy Hardison was, but then she remembered something.  
  
“Babe,” she asked probingly, “why didn’t you want us to look at your will?”  
  
Hardison blushed unable to look away from Parker’s unwavering questioning stare. “I was going to surprise you for Christmas,” he answered reluctantly. He paused and looked at the floor, clearly still hesitant to reveal the surprise. “I’ve left you everything.” He briefly glanced back up to see Parker’s expression and was met by a huge grin.  
  
She grabbed him and kissed him fiercely, barely containing her laughter. “I love you,” she said through a massive grin.  
  
“I love you too, babe”. Hardison replied.  
  
“Alright,” Eliot said, feigning annoyance, “can we stop with all that and get partying already?” He then stormed over to the buffet table, hiding the faint smile on his lips.  
  
Everyone laughed, and the music started. Hardison grabbed Parker and started to dance.


End file.
